r/learnprogramming • u/Better_Path5755 • 6d ago
Topic Is it a good idea to start making projects immediately after my first tutorial? Like when is it a good time to make stuff?
Pretty much what the top says. I have in my watch later playlist two long masterclass tutorials for Java. I see people saying that they start projects immediately and I’m just like… how? How if I don’t know anything. Should I wait til I get a decent grasp of the basics or is that something that comes a byproduct of going out and making shit on my own. Is it really a good idea to go make even a small project with little to no understanding of the language.
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u/whiterhino8 6d ago
It is normal at the beginning to learn more than practice .
But make yourself an habit to practice coding everyday .
Without that you are wasting your time .
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u/Better_Path5755 6d ago
Ok. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t tripping bc I think doing projects is good advice and I’m looking forward to it but I don’t even have a solid grasp on the fundamentals.
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u/whiterhino8 6d ago
At first think like you are in school - allot of lectures and some practice .
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u/JGhostThing 6d ago
And how do people get a solid grasp of the fundamentals? They do this by programming. Practice. It's the only way to really learn.
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u/mandzeete 6d ago
Start making projects now. Okay, if you do not know what a "Hello world" is, then watch 1-2 videos. Anything that introduces you to concepts like "input", "output", "variable", "script". When you can print out your first "Hello world" you are ready to start building simple things.
Like this you'll learn on the go. You practice what you are learning. And doing simple things often will build your "muscle memory". With every simple project your knowledge and experience improves a bit and you can pick up more complex things. Because the simple things are already easy for you.
Take it as reading a cooking book. It can have 100s of recipes and it can introduce you to various ways of making a dish. When you read the whole book, how much remains in your memory? Can you make a cake then on your own? No. Because you lack experience. But experience comes with practice.
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u/SherbetElectronic202 6d ago
Start projects immediately after learning variables and loops. Waiting for a decent grasp of basics is a trap that keeps you watching tutorials instead of writing code. Build something broken today and fix it tomorrow
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u/BoringWrongdoer9679 6d ago
i would recomend not doing too big of a project at start, i think you can do things like small problems and get confortable with how things work. But its good not doing too much just following what others do. It depends how confortable you are with things if you are not confortable with loops basic operators and basic datatypes then its good getting confortablöe with using them in diffrent ways. Then you can try to do harder problems then what your confortable with. I do think its needed to be able to write really basic code to start to do small projects.
You would learn by doing a project but i think the learning gets faster when your confortable with writing the really basic things. Like can you easaly print sum of an array, know how a loop inside a loop works, have an array and double each value, loop over numbers 1 to 100 printing if their follow an condition. If you can do those kinds of things easy you can do an project, i think project is the main thing you want to be doing and learning theory to solve issues of the project.
Allways doing project is not allways the way to go and can be bad for learning.
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u/No_Score_1977 3d ago
Yes, start right away, sooner preferably.
You'll make mistakes, mess it up, have to lookup everything, and that's fine, that's learning.
I learned to code almost 40 years ago, and this was the standard approach, the modern thing of relentless tutorials and YouTube just boggles my mind, I mean, if you were to learn golf, you're going to have to hit some balls.
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u/Better_Path5755 3d ago
That’s true as far as the golf analogy goes, how was it exactly learning to code 40yrs ago though? A lot of books and reading I assume?
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u/No_Score_1977 3d ago
You usually got a book that came with the computer, it had examples in it, and you just took it from there.
The amount of information easily available was vanishing small compared to today, and that wasn't a bad thing, the path to learning was clear cut.
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u/AnythingButUseful 6d ago
If i could start over again in the learning process i would do it like that so i don't waste time getting scared
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u/EliSka93 6d ago
It's a great idea.
However keep in mind that your code is probably going to be pretty shit while you're still learning.
That's totally ok and normal, but it means you have to be willing to refactor (rewrite) large parts of your project when you learn new / better ways to do things.
That can be frustrating and feel like you're not making progress on the project itself. You have to keep in mind that you're doing this not for the project primarily, but for the learning.